Nikko Jenkins biography: death row, Andrea Kruger murder, family and wife

There are over 2500 death row inmates in America at the moment, and spree killer Nikko Jenkins is one of them after going on a killing rampage and murdering four people. His case presents many peculiarities because he comes from a family of felons, and several members of the said family helped him perpetrate the crime, many of whom are still in jail.

Jenkins’s story is a strange one, primarily because of how early he started his journey in crime and the motive that he claims for them. The convicted murderer claims that he killed four people—three men and one woman—as a sacrifice to the Egyptian snake god Apophis or Apep.

You would think that would earn him a long stay in a mental institution, but American prosecutors decided differently after having Jenkins pay a visit to the psychiatrist. However, the weirdest thing about this story is that a woman named Dawn Arguello claims to have found ‘true love’ with the killer.

Although most of these are public knowledge, there’s so much more to the story of Nikko Jenkins that makes this article important.

Top 10 facts about Nikko Jenkins

1. Nikko Jenkins was born on 16 September 1986, and he is now 34 years old in 2021.
2. He was previously married in prison to a woman named Chalonda Jenkins and is preparing to get married again.
3. Nikko Jenkins is from a family of felons, and his sister and mother are currently serving prison sentences.
4. He once sliced his tongue and privates to pay homage to the Egyptian serpent god, Apophis.
5. The convicted spree killer claims to have PTSD, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder, but some psychiatrists insist that he is faking the symptoms to dodge punishment.
6. When he was 7, he took a gun to Highland Elementary School, which he attended.
7. At the age of 16, he was sentenced to 21 years in prison for carjacking.
8. Jenkins enlisted the help of his family members to carry out his murders.
9. In 2014, Nikko Jenkins filed a $24.5 million lawsuit against the city of Nebraska, saying he was wrongfully released from prison and blaming them for the murders.
10. In addition to being sentenced to death, Jenkins was also sentenced to 450 years in prison on weapons charges.

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Early life and crimes

Nikko Jenkins was born on 16 September 1986 in Colorado, USA, to Lori Jenkins and David A. Magee. The couple had six children together. At the time of Nikko’s birth, Magee and Jenkins were not married. In fact, they were never married.

Magee died in 2009, and at the time of his death, he had been convicted for several terroristic threats.

Jenkins and his sisters grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, with a family known for committing violent crimes. In fact, 38 people from Jenkins’s family are known to have been convicted of crimes, and this dates back to several generations.

From the time that Jenkins was young, all he ever knew was violence as he was exposed to physical abuse and criminal activity that his parents committed. As early as seven years old, Nikko Jenkins committed his first criminal act by taking a gun to school. Fortunately, no one was hurt.

At 15, Jenkins was charged with carjacking and aggravated assault and sentenced to 21 years in prison when he was 16. He served 10 years out of the 21 years before he was released. Within a month after that, he committed four murders in 10 days and was re-arrested.

Nikko Jenkins family

Nikko Jenkins comes from a troubled family that has spent generations committing violent crimes. The irony of things is that the Jenkins descended from the Levering family, who are known for their good reputation in Omaha, Nebraska.

However, since the family got involved with violence, it seems like they are having a hard time disengaging from it. Below are several Nikko Jenkins closest family members who have also been convicted for violent crimes.

Lori Jenkins

Lori Jenkins is Nikko Jenkins’s mother. The 51-year-old was found guilty of concealing evidence and providing false information about the purchase of ammunition. Even then, she was found not guilty of providing gasoline to her son and his uncle Warren Levering to get rid of the evidence.

The court ruled that she did not know what the gasoline was to be used for. Nonetheless, she was sentenced to 5 to 6 years in jail. Before that, she was already serving 10 years for being a felon in possession of ammunition.

Erica Jenkins

Erica Jenkins is Nikko Jenkins sister and was also involved in his murders. She was one of the two women who lured Jenkins’s first two victims to their deaths.

She also helped Jenkins kill his third victim, Curtis Bradford, and assisted with Kruger’s death. She was found guilty of Bradford death and was sentenced to life in prison.

She is also serving a 10-year sentence for robberies associated with the killing and 20 to 30 years for beating up fellow inmate Christine Bordeaux, who is also her cousin. Bordeaux testified against Erica and Nikko during their trial.

David A. Magee Sr.

David A. Magee Sr. is the patriarch of the Jenkins family. Although, he never married Lori Jenkins, he is the father of her six children.

He was also involved in a series of violent crimes, and at the time of his death in 2009, he was a felon convicted for several crimes.

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Warren Levering

Warren Levering is Nikko Jenkins’ uncle, and he helped him with the robbery and murder of Andrea Kruger. He pleaded guilty to charges of attempted robbery and accessory charges in the death of Kruger.

While he did not kill Kruger, he was hit with first-degree murder charges and sentenced to 40 years in prison. His sentence was eventually cut in half, and he was released in 2020 after completing his sentence.

Lori Sayles

Lori Sayles is Erica Jenkins’s younger sister, who was also an accessory to Jenkins killings. She was charged in connection with Bradford’s murder and was accused of hiding the murder weapon.

Melonie Jenkins

Melonie Jenkins is also Nikko Jenkins sister, who has also been convicted for several offenses. She testified against Erica during her murder trial but is not currently incarcerated. At the time of her arrest, she had three children under the age of seven.

Nikko Jenkins murders

Shortly after being released from prison in 2013, Nikko Jenkins was involved in a series of spree killings within ten days of regaining his freedom.

On 11 August 2013, a police officer discovered two bodies in a white pickup truck near a swimming pool in Spring Lake Park, Omaha. The two men had been shot in the head, and their pockets had been turned inside out. It appeared to be a robbery followed by murder. They were identified as Juan Uribe-Pena and Jorge C. Cajiga-Ruiz.

The two men had been lured there by Jenkins’s sister, Erica Jenkins, and his cousin, Christine Bordeaux, under the pretence that they would have sexual relations.

Later, on 19 August 2013, the body of Curtis Bradford was discovered with two bullet wounds in his back. The day before, Jenkins and Bradford had posed for a Facebook picture.

Jenkins’s fourth and final victim, Andrea Kruger, was killed and her body left in the street. She had been going home from work, and her car was discovered 12 miles away from her body.

Investigators said that an attempt had been made to set the car’s interior ablaze.

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Arrest & Trial

On 30 August 2013, Jenkins was arrested for making terroristic threats to his then-wife, Chalonda Jenkins who had reported him. By then, investigators had collected a host of evidence against him. Later, on 3 September, Jenkins confessed to the murders in a rambling eight-hour interview.

He claimed that the murders were sacrifices to the Egyptian god, Apophis or Apep, and that the hieroglyphic tattoos on his face are also homages to the same deity. Additionally, he had tried to carve 666 into his forehead, but he used a mirror, so it came out backwards, reading as 999 instead.

After his confession, he was charged with four counts of murder, to which Jenkins pleaded guilty. He insisted that he committed the crimes as commanded by Apophis and said in a hand-written letter that he would defend the god with “animalistic savage brutality”.

In February 2014, Jenkins filed a lawsuit against the state of Nebraska, claiming that he should not have been released early, while stating that his claims of hearing voices from Apophis were ignored.

He also complained about being placed in solitary confinement, saying that it worsened his schizophrenia and demanded $24.5 million.

During his trial, however, a judge ordered a psychiatric evaluation and mental health professionals concluded that he suffers from an antisocial personality disorder, and was faking psychotic symptoms to avoid taking responsibility.

Jenkins spoke in tongues, howled, and laughed as prosecutors narrated the details of his victims’ deaths during his trial. In May 2017, Jenkins was sentenced to death by a 3-judge jury and an additional 450 years in jail on weapons charges. On 20 April 2020, the supreme court refused his request to appeal the decision.

Nikko Jenkins marriage to Chalonda Jenkins

Jenkins has also been married once, although he never spent more than a month outside a prison environment with his ex-wife. He married Chalonda Jenkins on 6 February 2010 at the Tecumseh State prison. There are no records of them having any children together although Chalonda had a child with another man during their marriage.

She has been openly critical of how he was treated, saying that he suffers from mental health disorders and didn’t stand a chance once he was taken out of prison.

Where is Nikko Jenkins now?

Nikko Jenkins is currently in prison, where he is awaiting the date of his execution, which hasn’t been set. He is still one of the prisoners on death row in the state of Nebraska, but a death date has not been set for him yet.

In 2019, Dawn Arguello, a 46-year-old Texas woman, was reportedly planning to marry the convicted murderer. 

When asked about details of the nuptials, Arguello refused to give any information, merely saying that she considers Jenkins to be an enigma and ‘incredibly sensitive’, saying, “He’s not what the media has made him out to be. He’s an enigma. He has feelings. He’s very sensitive. He’s very intelligent and, yes, he’s very manipulating.”

It has not been confirmed, however, if the two lovebirds managed to get married after all.

Conclusion

Nikko Jenkins is one of the most hardened killers on death row and seems to show no remorse for the killings that he committed. For someone who got his first entry into the world of crime at the age of seven, it can be argued that his end was almost predictable.

Psychiatrists have argued that Jenkins is faking his psychotic symptoms while he claims that they are real. Either way, the consequences of his actions seem to have caught up with him and there’s no escaping this time.

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